


Guardian

by Amymel86



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, BUT THIS WILL HAVE A HAPPY ENDING, F/M, Jon is dead, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-17 01:42:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13066506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amymel86/pseuds/Amymel86
Summary: Jon knows that it is not wise to fall in love with someone you work with. Things can get awkward and complicated - especially when one of you is dead.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Titania_Queen_of_the_Fairies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Titania_Queen_of_the_Fairies/gifts).



> Short intro chapter - this should be finished by the end of the week (so please don't groan and moan that I'm starting yet another!! I have this one, then a oneshot for Xmas and one for New Year - AND THEN I'LL BE BACK ON THE WIPs!! I promise!!)
> 
> A gift for Titania_Queen_of_the_Fairies for her birthday and for leaving the lovliest, most supportive comments on my fics! HAPPY BIRTHDAY FOR WEDNESDAY MY LOVELY!!

The brightness was blindingly painful as Jon squinted into the light. "Gods!" he muttered, throwing his arm over his face to shield his eyes. He was dizzy, disorientated, his mouth was dry and there was a loud roaring in his ears. 

And then, all at once, it stopped.

"Excuse me, sir?" came an uncertain sounding voice from the other side of his arm. "Are you alright?"

Jon peeked out from behind his sleeve, only just now realising that he was panting and a bit sweaty.

_Where am I?_ He wondered as some ceiling tiles and a concerned looking man looming over him came into view. Jon quickly made to sit up, suddenly realising that had been a mistake as a pain like no other stretched across his brow like a crack through stone. He winced and held his head.

"Careful," said the man, "careful now." He fussed over Jon a little as they both managed to get him to his unsteady feet. He wore a crisp white shirt, neatly tucked into black trousers.

"What happened?" Jon croaked, his voice scratchy and hoarse as he stared at the man's smart office shoes.

"I'll find out in a moment, I don't normally deal with arrivals."

"Arrivals?" Jon asked, rubbing at the pain in his head.

"Yes, this is the Dispatch Department" the man, who wore a name tag that Jon tried to focus on, said, as if that cleared everything up.

_Renly_ , Jon managed to read on the man's badge at last. "Listen, Renly," he implored "help me out here... _where exactly am I? How did I get here?_ The last thing I remember is-" 

_What is the last thing I remember?_ Jon's mind was blank. He tried to grasp at something that was there but it eluded him. It was like he was chasing after a silk scarf caught in a gust of wind, he could see flashes of it's colours, but try as he might, he could not get a firm hold or feel of the material as it fluttered away and out of his hands.

Renly gave him a soft smile and urged him to take a seat. "Wait here, I'll go get the handbook."

"Oh...oh, ok." Jon responded numbly. 

As Renly walked away, Jon was only just now aware that he was in some sort of waiting room. He had been seated upon pale green standard waiting room chairs, all set up in rows around the room. The walls were a rather dull cream and the easy notes of generic soft jazz music was playing from somewhere. Jon glanced around and saw a scattering of singular people, sat alone in their matching pale green chairs, either twiddling their thumbs and staring at the floor or nervously tapping their feet - one man was asleep and laid across a whole row of seating, his snores competing with the waiting room music. 

Renly came shuffling back with a thick bound booklet. "I borrowed this from Arrivals, they can't fit you in so said to just go ahead and induct you myself, " he puffed as if he'd just run up a flight of stairs. _Perhaps he had._

"Induct me?"

"Yes" Renly replied with a smile as he handed over the book, complete with protective acetate sheet.

The first thing Jon noticed was the awful Clip Art on the cover that reminded him of school IT lessons. It even used Word Art in the title. "What is this?" he asked before actually registering the words upon the cover; _So You've Died - What's Next?_

Jon read the words, and then read them again. He threw a confused look at Renly who had taken a seat beside him and then went back to those words again. "Err...what-what does this mean? _'So you've died'?_ I haven't died. I'm here...wherever the fuck _here_ actually is, which, by the way, you still haven't answered me!" his voice rose with each word, his sentence ending on a growl of anger.

Renly held out both hands in what Jon suspected was supposed to be a calming manner. It only served to fan the flames of his rage. "Ok, look, as I said, I don't normally deal with arrivals, and they have this whole protocol to ease you into acceptance...but they're swamped down there at the moment so-" 

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose and took a long drag of air. In and out. "You keep calling me an 'arrival'. _Where_ exactly have I arrived?"

Renly brought Jon's attention back to the manual in his hands. He tapped at the corporate looking logo right at the bottom. It had three navy stars above the words 'Afterlife Head Quarters'.

 


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm...dead?" Jon breathed, staring down at the spiral bound manual in his hands.

"Yeah... 'fraid so" Renly chuckled, patting Jon's shoulder, only to remove it from his person hastily after being treated with a scowl from the man himself.

"I.. _.I can't be dead_. I'm _here!_ I'm... _solid!_....I'm _breathing!_ " Jon choked out, his chest expanding with panicky breaths. " _I'm not dead!_ This is-this is a joke isn't it? I mean, this can't be the _afterlife_!" he waved the booklet around, indicating to the waiting room as a whole. "This looks like a-a... _fucking denist's waiting area!_...Is that it? Did-did I come in for a root canal and take too much of that knock out gas you guys use?! _Have you drugged me?!_ "

"Sir-" Renly pleaded, raising those hands again as if he were placating a wild animal, "No one has drugged you, I'm afraid that you _are_ deceased. Now, If we can just keep our tone down-"

" _Keep our tone down?! KEEP OUR TONE DOWN?!_  ... _YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT I'M DEAD IN A DENIST WAITING ROOM AND YOU WANT ME TO KEEP MY FUCKING TONE DOWN?!"_ Jon's raised voice brought the attention of everyone in the room - not that he had noticed. Even the snoring man had awoke and was now sat up watching as Jon's wild eyes stared down at his hands. As if they held the answer.

"Sir-"

"This isn't happening!...This _can't_ be happening.." Jon muttered to himself before twisting in his pale green seat to face Renly, "I'm high aren't I? This is a bad trip!"

"Sir, I'm sorry to tell you but-"

"You're dead, sweetie," a woman interrupted, leaning forwards from where she sat opposite them. She had dark red hair that matched the striking shade of her lipstick perfectly - lipstick that was smeared across her mouth and chin. She also had clumps of black mascara in her lashes, the stain from it leaking down her cheeks like the beginnings of a trickling stream trying to find its way back to the ocean. She reached for the collar of her tight black sweater and tugged it down to reveal a set of angry purple bruises decorating the skin of her neck like a choker. "Face it, hun...you're dead, we're all dead...dead, deceased, expired, ended," she leant back into her chair and put a cigarette into her mouth, "the curtains have closed for the final time, and here we are," the woman opened her arms wide to dramatically gesture to the room before bringing a lighter to the end of her cigarette.

"Ma'am, you can't smoke in here" Renly admonished.

The woman took a drag and blew a few smoke rings into the air. "What ya gonna do, Ren? Kill me?"

"Ma'am-"

"Ros" she corrected. "My god-dammed name is Ros, and you know it so don't go _ma'am_ -ing me!" She held the cigarette between two fingers as she pointed them towards Renly in accusation. "Sixteen days I've been in this room! _Sixteen days!_ And how many pieces of paper have you had me fill out, hmm? How many times have I given you my name on this form or that?"

"Ros-" Renly tried again, his hands raising once more, palms facing her as if that would calm her. Jon suspected it only served to make the woman more irate. "We're working as fast as we can with your paperwork. You'll be allocated as soon as everything has gone through the proper procedure in accordance to policies and legislation. Unfortunately, these things take time to get everything signed off. In the meantime, I'll ask you to-"

" _In the meantime_ , you can eat shit and go to hell, Renly....perhaps it's better than here?!" Ros hissed, stubbing out her cigarette on the seat next to her, the durable material and the padding beneath singeing black with smoke wafting off of it.

Renly pursed his lips together. "Trust me _Ros_ , it's not. I did my internship there - the coffee was horrendous. Now if you don't mind, I need to see to Mr-" He turned to Jon with an expectant look.

"Snow, Jon Snow" he answered a little too slowly.

Renly nodded. "Mr Snow here has just found out he's dead so if you don't mind?" He said with a raised brow. Ros muttered something that neither Jon nor Renly could hear before she crossed her arms and sank into her seat. Most of the eyes in the room seemed to have returned to staring mindlessly at the dull carpet.

Jon left the manual in his lap so that both hands could scrub down his face as it tilted up to the ceiling tiles and the bright florescent lights above. "How" he said in a strained voice before looking back at Renly. "How did I.....How did it happen?"

"You don't remember?"

Jon shook his head as Renly slid the manual from Jon's lap to his own. He licked his thumb and began flipping pages. "I think that can be quite common if it was a sudden thing," he mutter down at the pages, "I'm sure it will tell us more in here somewhere..."

After a little while of flipping through pages only to backtrack and flick back to the contents page, or turn to the index, Renly shut the manual with a huff. "You know what? Everything we need to know about you will be in your file. Let's start there. Follow me please, Mr Snow."

As they were leaving, Jon heard a few grumbles from the people still hanging around in the waiting room. He could practically feel the glare from Ros' eyes, burning him at the back of the head like her cigarette had done with the seating upholstery. He followed Renly along a few narrow corridors until they reached a large room divided and sectioned off into little office cubicles. They meandered through the maze of office staff either chatting away on phone calls, or typing at their computers until they reached a vacant desk. 

"Take a seat" Renly indicated as he sat behind the computer screen, beginning to tap at the keys. "Okay...let's see what we've got here" he murmured to himself. Jon shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Date of birth from your last life?" Renly asked. 

"January 9th, 1989"

"Mm-hm" he typed, "and where were you born in your previous life?"

"Winterfell."

"Ok, Your National Insurance number?"

"The afterlife recognises my NI number?" Jon asked incredulously.

"I'm just trying to make sure I pull up the correct file, Mr Snow."

Jon huffed and pulled out his wallet to retrieve his NI card before tossing it onto the desk between them.

"Thank you" Renly replied curtly, typing in the number. "Favourite flavour of ice cream?"

"What?"

Renly's eye never left the screen before him, "As I said, Mr Snow, I need to make sure I'm looking at the right file before we start working on it, now what's your favourite flavour please?"

"Err...Um, mint-choc-chip...I guess."

Renly pushed some keys, rolled the mouse along and made a few clicks here and there. "Ok, I _think_ I've found you. Just one more security question. At what age did in your last life did you lose your virginity, Mr Snow?"

"Uuh..."

Renly turned to him expectantly, his fingers poised above the keyboard.

"17" Jon coughed, "it was 17." He felt his face flush and was sure he was rapidly turning a fetching shade of red.

_Anything else? Favourite position? When did I last take a shit?_

"Alright..." Renly's attention had returned to the computer screen where he was scrolling and clicking. 

Jon's gaze drifted to the very unassuming little office cubicle. There was nothing other than the computer, phone and pen pot on the desk. Along the dividing wall, pieces of paperwork were stuck with pins. Jon suddenly spied a photograph of a man with curly light brown hair and golden eyes smiling for the camera as he cuddled a Labrador. A thought stuck him.

"Listen," Jon leant forward, his forearms resting on the desk "if I'm really...err... _dead_...is...is my mother here?"

"Perhaps, when did she leave you in your past life?" 

"When I was 15."

Renly looked at him with a sad smile then. "I'm afraid you will have missed her then. She most definitely would have been reallocated by now." Jon sat back in his chair and stared at the faux grain in the MDF desk in front of him. "Ok, it says here that the cause of death in your last life waaaas..." Renly's finger continued to drag along the scroll wheel on the mouse until it came to a complete stop and a pause. "Huh" he said to himself.

"What is it?"

"Well, the space is blank. There's no cause of death....but when I click through to the notes on your file, there's an incomplete entry...it just says 'wolf' ...does that ring any bells, Mr Snow? Were you attacked by a wolf?"

"I...I don't think so."

"Hmmm" Renly nodded whilst sweeping his gaze up and down Jon's body, "you don't look like you've been mauled." He pressed a few buttons and then the printer behind him whirred into life. Renly swiped the printout that emerged from the machine, took a pen and signed a few boxes before pressing an inked stamp at the top of the page. "Take this," he offered the paper, "fill it in in the Dispatch Department waiting area where I found you and-"

"Oh no, no, no" Jon shook his head, "I'm not going back there."

"Mr Snow, the correct paperwork has to be found and recalled from the archive before-"

"No! That Ros woman has been waiting there for _days_ and I _can't_ , I just can't do that. What's next? What will I be waiting _for_?"

"To be allocated."

"Allocated to _what_?"

Renly snatched back his offered piece of paperwork with a huff and returned to his computer screen where his fingers irritably hit various keys and he clicked with the mouse with perhaps more force than he really needed to. "Your soul is not ready for your next reincarnation, so you will be allocated as a guardian once the paperwork is finalised and-"

"A guardian?"

Renly rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Yes, a guardian. You'll be given an assignment and you'll need to help that soul find something that their lives are missing, help them move on in some way."

"Like...a guardian angel you mean?"

"Yes, well, you won't be given a halo and wings if that's what you're thinking."

"And then I get resurrected?"

"Reincarnated."

"Whatever. I won't be here. I'll be... _alive_ again?"  

"Once you've completed your guardianship we'll reassess your case. You may be reincarnated or you may be sent on another guardianship, but at some point, Mr Snow, you will return to earth to live another life."

Jon licked his lips and smoothed his hands down his thighs in anticipation. Part of him still did not quite believe that he could possibly be in the afterlife, but that voice was being drowned out by the one yelling about being returned to normality as quickly as possible, even if he knew that could never be. In any case, he wanted to be rid of this place. "Ok."

"Ok?"

"Ok, I'll do it." Jon clarified.

"Alright," Renly picked up the piece of paperwork yet again, holding it aloft for Jon to take. "Go and fill this out and-"

"No. I'll do it now. Give me my assignment now. I'll take up the guardianship immediately."

"Sir, I can't just-"

"Can I talk to you superior, Renly?"

The man before him paled slightly. "Wh-why would you want to-?"

"Listen, you've got Ros stewing away in there for days, my guess is that you must have a deadline to adhere to for each case and I don't know about you, but sixteen days seems like a mighty long time to be waiting in one place. There's also the fact that despite your promises of 'inducting' me into the afterlife, I'm left feeling ill at ease with the complete lack of information. You can't even tell me _how_ I died, Ren, can I call you Ren?"

"B-but" Renly spluttered, pointing at his computer screen.

"So, if Ros' experience is anything to go by, I'll be waiting - what was it? Sixteen days? - not knowing how I came to been here? Seems to me like somewhere along the line, the procedure has failed and I want to talk to someone about it. Do you have a Complaints Department, Ren? I'd really like to talk to them....what was your last name again?"

Renly stared back at him with wide eyes, his mouth opening and closing like a gaping fish for a small while. He finally shook his head and cleared his throat. After doing some more typing and clicking, the printer came to life again and a different set of paperwork came streaming out. Renly added a paperclip to keep all the pages together, and much like before, penned his signature to a few places and a stamp here and there before pushing it towards Jon.

"What's this?"

"It's the guardian manual, once you sign the bottom of the last page you'll be given your assignment."

"Great!" Jon beamed, grabbing a pen and clicking the end to produce the nib. He lifted the pages to reveal the last before hastily scrawling his signature along the allotted space.

"You need to read it firs-"

Jon didn't hear the last of Renly's words, suddenly feeling like he had collapsed, falling from the chair he was in. Only, he kept on falling, hurtling through different colours and lights, various sounds loudly rushing past his ears. He felt sick. At some point he thought he'd heard himself scream. Up was down and down was up and his stomach - _oh Gods!_ \- his stomach was more than in knots; his stomach was a hundred strings of Christmas lights that had been balled up into a tangle for years and years. He really does think he might be sick.

It stops. It stops with a thud and the sudden feeling of the world coming to a standstill. Something soft is beneath his cheek as he groans and tries to push himself off of whatever floor he's landed on. It's dark wherever he is but he can just about make out the pink fluffy rug beneath him.

A light suddenly comes on, illuminating his world and stinging his eyes as a gasp fills his ears. Jon rolls to his back, his whole body aches but he swallows the groan of protest as his eyes meet with another set watching him in horror. 

 _A girl_ , he thinks, _a beautiful girl,_ he clarifies to himself, _a very scared looking beautiful girl._

"Um..." Jon mumbles quietly at the woman peering down at him on the floor from her position on top of the bed. "...hello."

She screams.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The echoes of the redhead's shriek were bouncing around in his brain as Jon made to stand with his hands out in front of him, silently pleading for her not to be afraid. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm not here to hurt you!"

The woman's widened eyes told Jon that she did not believe him - and why would she? He was a strange man that had suddenly appeared in what seems to be her bedroom at what felt like the middle of the night, if the drawn curtains and warm glow that her bedside lamp threw out were any indication.

_Oh yeah, and I'm dead._

The woman rose from beneath the covers, her eyes stayed on Jon as she came to stand on top of the mattress. Her breath was coming out in panicked pants that threw some strands of her copper hair out in front of her a time or two as her own arms were stretched out in a decidedly _'_ don't-come-any-closer' fashion. She was wearing an oversized faded t-shirt that featured a large Mickey Mouse below a Disneyland Kings Landing logo. The shirt looked innocent and cute but Jon decided the long, long legs that emerged from the bottom of it were sinful beyond belief. He only just managed to stop himself from gawking. 

"Who are you?! H-how did you get in?!" The woman demanded in a shaky voice. She padded her unsteady feet a couple of times in an attempt to stay standing tall upon the wobbly mattress. 

"I understand this is strange, but I kind of...uh...well I've been sent here by...I'm here from the afterlife" Jon's voice trailed up at the end as if he'd not held any belief in his own words and was asking clarification from the woman who was clearly scared out of her wits.

"Wh...what you do mean?" She asked, her eyes briefly glancing up and down his body.

"Ok, look...I hardly believe it either, but I _think_ that I may have been sent to you as your guardian angel."

The redhead slowly lowered her hands as she stared at Jon. "I don't believe it" she muttered. Jon was just about to chip in with his own feelings of shared disbelief when she carried on, seemingly talking to herself as her eyes looked as though they fixed through him. "They told me Fleabottom was a nice area to live in now. _They told me_ the crime rate had really dropped since the renovations and developments began!"

"Who told you?"

"The people who sold me this flat!" she spat. "And stupid little Sansa believed them because it was affordable and had a cute little kitchen _and now look!_ I'm about to get attacked by a sodding nutter who thinks he's my guardian angel _all because of a Belfast sink and great water pressure!_ " the woman all but sobbed.

"Look, uh, Sansa?" Jon took a tentative step forward.

"STAY BACK!" she yelled making Jon leap to do as she bid instantly with his hands raised again.

"I'll stay here! I'll stay here!" he assured her.

"No you bloody well won't! Get out!"

"But-"

"GET OUT!"

Jon started backing up, not really knowing where he was going and managing to bump into the wall behind him. "I don't want to scare you! I-"

"GET. OUT!"

His hands fumbled along the wall behind him, one of them finding the door-frame, the other seemed to be clutching onto something. He glanced down, realising that he was still holding on to the contract that Renly had given him. "Look! This-this is a guardianship contract, it-"

"Guardianship contract my ass! Get out of my bedroom. Get out of my flat. Get out. Get out. Get out!" She'd stepped down from the bed now and held a firm stance against her would-be attacker - as she saw it.

"I'm not going to hurt you, I swear!" Jon pleaded as he near enough fell backwards out of her bedroom doorway.

"Oh really? Make a habit of creeping into girl's rooms in the dead of night then do you?"

"I told you, I didn't 'creep' anywhere! I was...sent to you!" Jon waved the contract in desperation.

"Are you high on something?" She asked incredulously.

"No! Trust me, I wish I was! I'm...well, I'm _dead_."

Sansa gaped at him for a beat or two before her arm reached blindly for items from her dressing table. Jon took a step back and ducked as a brush went flying past him. " _Get. Out!_ " Some sort of bottle of lotion hit him in the chest as his arms came up defensively. " _Get. Out!_ " He ducked again as a perfume bottle went hurtling over his head and landed with a smash on the hardwood floor. He looked back at her when he heard her whimper. "That was my favourite" she lamented with a pout before fixing him with a glare as if it were his fault. He supposes it probably is.

Jon stumbles backwards, almost falling onto her couch as he blindly tries to find his way to her front door. Sansa steps forward, silently pressing him _out, out, out._ She's scared. He can't blame her. Anyone would be. But, he can't help wondering how he's meant to help her if she's so afraid of him?

He hears the bolt and latch after he falls into the hallway and the door is slammed in his face. "If you don't leave the building in the next 3 minutes, I'm calling the police!" she bellows from the other side before the long, narrow hall is filled with silence. After a while of standing there in a stupor, Jon finally slides his back down the wall to sit beside Sansa's flat door. He can hear movement on the other side of the wall and suspects that the scraping sound is her shifting some heavy furniture to block her front door.

 _Shit. I've terrified her_ , he thinks guiltily before remembering the contract he clutched in his hand. _No, I didn't ask to be teleported into her bedroom at god-knows-what hour! This is not my doing!....Still feel pretty bad though._

He lets out a long sigh and wonders if he's already cocked this assignment up and may be reassigned, or perhaps he's done such a shit job of it, they'll just reincarnate him straight away to save any further guardianship blunder he's likely to commit. He flicks through the first few pages in his hand, until his eyes snag on a bullet-point list.

'Guardianship Basics', the title proclaims.

  * A Guardian's aim is to aid their assigned soul in an area of their lives that they have been finding difficult or holding back their personal growth.



_Well I've just added some anxiety to her life,so there's that._

  * The area in which the assigned soul will need guidance will only become clear after observation.



_From what I've managed to observe, she seems pretty damned perfect to me._ Jon mentally cursed himself for thinking of those smooth slender legs on the other side of that door.

  * After a period of observation, a Guardian should try to steer their assigned soul onto the right path by projecting their own emotions, for example, an assigned soul will be able to sense their Guardian's fear in a dangerous situation that they may have put themselves in, thus prompting them to re-assess the situation.



_Trust me, that one has no problem in sussing out a dangerous situation._

  * Once you have aided your assigned soul, you will return to Afterlife Head Quarters for assessment.



_That might take a while, considering._ Jon looked forlornly at Sansa's door.

  * As the living are blind to the presence of their Guardians, you will need to-



_Wait, what?!_

Jon read, and re-read the bullet-point. 

_She's...she's not meant to be able to see me?! No one is?!_

Deciding to keep on reading, should the answer for his confusion be laid out for him in print, Jon's eyes fell upon another bullet-point.

  * Guardians are physically unable to exist beyond a certain distance from their assigned soul. This distance is determined not only by the type of help needed from the Guardianship, but the strength of the natural bond between the two souls.



Just as Jon's brain was processing the final words of the information, he felt a painful tug at his insides as the carpet beneath his butt slid out from under him and his hearing suddenly felt hike he was underwater for a split second.

"What the-?" he asked no one in particular as he got his bearings again, feeling dizzy for the second time in not so long. He looked around, realising he was still sat on the floor. And yet he was no longer in the hallway of Sansa's building.

"How did you do that?!" a voice yelped from behind him.

Jon twisted his torso and looked up at Sansa. Her hair had been scraped up into a messy bun as she stood there clutching at a glass of water. She was still in that tortuously cute t-shirt and she still had those devilishly long legs on display. "Uh..." he responded dumbly.

"You-you just..." she stuttered, her finger raising of it's own accord to point weakly at her front door, "you just came through the wall!" 

 

 

 


End file.
